00:44 - ApothecaryI never saw the appeal of Pallbearer. Ok music, but not worth the enormous praise they've been getting by some. Didn't ever impress me much on album and when I saw them live with Deafheaven I wasn't really won over either

Swedish metallers Skyfire have issued the following update on their MySpace blog:

"After 5 years of computer failure, illness, lineup-changes and countless other obstacles, Swedish progressive death metallers Skyfire will triumphantly return to unleash their long awaited 4th album "Esoteric" this September 8th in North America, 14th in the UK and 18th in Europe via Pivotal Rockordings. Bassist Martin Hanner comments on the band's new album which features 10 epic new songs, some of which utilizing up to 70 individual tracks each:

"For this album, we were heavily inspired by bands like Symphony X and Bal-Sagoth; bands that write epic and catchy songs at the same time. We really thought long and hard about how we can make this new record as epic as possible without it coming off as cheesy and we then carefully began writing the subtle choir and orchestra parts to accompany the already bombastic music. This took quite some time, but we are pleased with the final result. The writing and overall planning for this CD took years and we literally weren't finished writing until right after all the recording was done.

When the album was finished, we had a long discussion with our label regarding what to do about bonus tracks. Both parties agreed that the songs we wrote for this album are too special to be broken up for different territories. So instead we decided to include the old "Within Reach" demos as bonus tracks. These are literally the first legitimate Skyfire recordings ever, and as you'll soon see, the first and only time you'll hear Skyfire with a clean singer. Even though the songwriting and especially the lyrics are immature, we think these songs will be cool for a lot of fans who might have wondered what we sounded like all those years ago. These tracks were never made available to the public until now."

"The cover is basically a guy who is being initiated by a cult. You can choose to interpret the guy in pain as he is being burned alive by the cultists just so he can join, or you can interpret the guy as having achieved the power he sought, and he is screaming out of bliss and not pain. It relates to the title because a lot of us would think that what he is doing is kind of ridiculous- why would anyone want to join a cult? But people do strange things and they have their own subjective, esoteric sense of understanding that to the rest of us, is strange or crazy. I think we all in some shape or form have esoteric practices that a lot of other people don't 'get', whether it's believing in something or even listening to metal music."